Venezuelan leader likens himself to Joseph Stalin

Date of publication: 18 09 2017, 12:14

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro believes that he has much in common with Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

During his weekly TV program, “Sundays With Maduro,” Maduro, 54, said: “There are people in the world who consider that I am the Caribbean Stalin. And I do look like him: look at my facial profile,” he said.

“Sometimes I look in the mirror and it seems to me that I look like Stalin,” he added.

Meanwhile, the president said world leaders criticizing him use much tougher measures in their countries than he does in his own. “[Spanish Prime Minister Mariano] Rajoy has deployed police to Catalonia to detain 700 mayors. Does he act like a dictator? Maduro, who allows the opposition to hold a plebiscite, or Rajoy who does not want Catalonia to have a say?” he said.

At the end of July, Venezuela held elections to the Constituent Assembly convened by Maduro’s decision without a preliminary referendum. The opposition boycotted the elections and refused to recognize their results or the outcome of the assembly’s work. Some countries in the Western Hemisphere likewise refused to recognize Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly, and the US slapped sanctions on Maduro.